SOLDIER SLAPPED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21261, 25 November 1943, Page 4

SOLDIER SLAPPED

GENERAL’S ACT APOLOGY TENDERED CASTIGATION BY CHIEF (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) LONDON, Nov. 23. Lieut.-General Patton has apologised to all officers and men for striking a soldier during the Sicilian campaign. At the same time Allied Headquarters in Algiers permitted the correspondents to reveal the facts. LieutenantGeneral Patton struck a shell-shocked soldier in a hospital tent because he thought the soldier was shirking his duty. General Patton, in a fit of fury, expressed sympathy for men who were really wounded but made it plain that he did not believe this particular soldier was in that category. Lieutenant-General Patton .struck the youth with the back of his hand.

The commanding officer of the hospital intervened but General Patton, still in a high temper, expressed his views again and berated the stricken soldier who offered to return to the front. The facts showed that the soldier had had an excellent record and had foflght through the Tunisian and Sicilian campaigns. He had been diagnosed as a medical case a week earlier but refused to leave his post. Finally, a doctor ordered him to hosP The incident was reported to the Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Eisenhower, who wrote to General Patton denouncing his conduct and ordering him to make amends or be removed from his command. General Patton apologised to the stricken soldier, to the hospital commander and to all those present at the time and explained that at a time of stress a general is under great nervous tension and may do things that he afterwards regrets. . When the incident first was disclosed’ by the columnist, Mr. Drew Pearson, it was officially denied that General Eisenhower had reprimanded General Patton. The official statement said: “General Patton is commanding the Seventh Army, has commanded .it since it was on active service, and is continuing in command. No report had ever reached headquarters of any soldiers refusing to obey an- order of General Patton who had never been reprimanded at any time by General Eisenhower or anybody else in this theatre.” A high ranking official at Allied Headquarters, in a statement to-day, on the incident, repeated the official denial that General Eisenhower had reprimanded General Patton, but disclosed that General Eisenhower had “mercilessly castigated General Patton after .the slapping incident. It is officially explained that the reprimand would mean official military punishment.